"A little-spoken-of war is taking place behind California's fences and property lines – trespassing marijuana growers are setting booby traps, resorting to violence and vandalism, and spoiling the land by stealing water and spraying dangerous chemicals that leach into streams."
"It's gold vs. golden trout. And gold vs. coho salmon. And gold vs. Shasta crayfish. The California Department of Fish and Game is wrestling – under court order – with a new set of rules to control suction dredge mining in the state's rivers and streams."
A former employee of a restaurant in Acadia National Park won a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit over records the National Park Service had refused to release, about a 2008 incident when he was among those detained by Park Service police.
"The Pew Environment Group says the Grand Canyon is especially at risk. Critics of the mining say an 1872 law gives companies 'carte blanche.'"
"Wild rice is sacred to the Ojibwe of Minnesota, but that may not be enough to protect it from the promise of jobs that a new copper-nickel mining industry would bring to the state."
According to a Dept. of Interior report requested by Obama and released March 29, 2011, 70% of existing federal oil and gas offshore lease acres and 57% of all federal onshore leased acres are inactive, with no production, exploration or development.
"To reach a lost American place, here just a moment ago, follow a thin country road as it unspools across an Appalachian valley’s grimy floor, past a coal operation or two, a church or two, a village called Twilight. Beware of the truck traffic. Watch out for that car-chasing dog."
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